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Robert James Spells was charged with shooting a 21-year-old transgender woman during a robbery and forcing an 11-year-old girl into prostitution, according to the Los Angeles County district attorney’s office. Spells was also charged with six other felonies including second-degree robbery, offering the child to men for sex and two counts of aggravated sexual assault of a child.

Like many, if not most, trans women of color, I have a lot of serious anger about the Transgender Day of Remembrance (TDoR). It’s flawed not just in concept, “owned” by a white trans woman who shuns even the most polite constructive criticism or to discuss race on the official TDoR site, but also in execution, where the names of a group that is almost all trans women of color are used almost as objects in many venues throughout the Global West where TDoR events are held.

It’s been mentioned over and over that TDoR is broken, exploitative, problematic, or whatever word you want to use. I’m really not planning on rehashing this, because it’s allbeensaid before. Similarly, I think we’re all on the same page by now that any organized group of trans women controlled by HBSers or New Trans Separatists is going to essay to exclude trans…

Content warning: Discussion of suicide and ostracism of trans women, significant fatphobic hatespew is involved on the part of Andrea James. Proceed with appropriate caution if this might cause you pain.

It’s with a heavy heart that once again I address all of you before yet another Transgender Day of Remembrance that still fails trans women of color, fails trans victims of suicide, and directly refuses to count trans people killed by police and in custody. TDoR remains a day dedicated to dividing our community, an already divided and fractious community, rather than bringing us together. Yes, this is directly related to the insular and panicked community we have, but it’s also connected to the problem behind TDoR itself: its “ownership” by Gwen Smith, whose refusal to discuss race on the official TDoR site along with her somewhat narrow choices as to what deaths do and don’t matter, strangles the…